The City of Cape Town says it will bring three desalination plants online in the first quarter of this year.
Construction at the Monwabisi, Strandfontein and V&A Waterfront desalination projects are currently underway and will be completed within the following two months.
Officials say more money needs to be raised to pay for these projects, as well to maintain the city’s water reticulation system and this will be funded by way of a proposed new drought levy, which the city will introduce this year.
The Monwabisi and Strandfontein desalination plants will yield 7 million litres of water per day each.
These two units will come online by the end of February.
The V&A Waterfront’s temporary desalination plant will generate 2 million litres of water daily from March.
Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille has, however, warned that water consumption remains too high.
“Already where we are at our current levels of consumption, in December we estimated Day Zero to be the 29th of April. Where we are sitting today, Day Zero will be on the 22nd of April, it is being brought forward by a week.”
The city’s dam levels currently stand at 29.7%.
